On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama made his first speech on economic policy since the official start of his reelection campaign, calling on Congress to enact a list of corporate handouts in the name of “creating jobs.”

Obama kicked off his proposals with a right-wing tribute to the profit system, repeating his mantra that “the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector; it’s not Washington.”

The entire speech was built on the assertion that government spending is not a legitimate means of putting people to work. He even went as far as to boast that the period of his administration was “the only time that government employment has gone down during a recession.”

The speech comes four days after the Labor Department announced that the US economy added only 115,000 jobs in April, significantly less than the amount needed to keep up with population growth.